Market Day (takes place before Sabotaged Spoilers: Sabotaged & Torn)
by KelseyGallant
Summary: Before we read Revealed, my brothers and I were discussing who Jonah might be. I remembered reading the name Henry Fountain as one of the missing kids in Found. I researched and found out that Henry Fountain and his father, Albert, disappeared together in 1896. I thought it seemed plausible that Jonah could be Henry, and his dad could be someone else involved with time travel.


Market Day

Naafi woke up with excitement in his heart. He knew what day it was. It was the day he had looked forward to all year.

Naafi bounded up from his straw bed. Mama was pounding grain at the grindstone, but she looked up when she saw Naafi, and gave him a warm smile. "It's Market Day," she told him.

"I know!" Naafi exclaimed. "I can't wait to see what they have this year! I've been saving up all year for this!"

"Breakfast first," Mama reminded him.

Naafi fidgeted all throughout breakfast, and when Mama finally said he could be excused, he ran outside the small hut and grabbed his bag of clay beads. Each bead was unique, each had a special design carved into it by Naafi himself. Naafi would trade the beads for items he wanted at the marketplace.

Naafi and Mama walked into town. Town was abuzz with excitement, and merchants from all over the place—even from far away!—were setting up shop wherever Naafi looked. "Look, Mama!" he cried. "Look at the straw hats! Oh, and look over there! Colorful rugs! Mama, Mama, look over _there!_ That guy is selling _pigs!_ Can we get one, Mama, please?"

"No pigs," Mama said with a smile. "How about we walk around and browse. Browse first, then decide what we really want to trade for."

Naafi held Mama's hand as they strolled around the marketplace, looking in all the different tents, seeing if there was anything they wanted to trade Naafi's beads or Mama's shawls for.

At one tent, there was a young man who stood out most severely from everyone else at the marketplace. He had very pale skin, very light yellowish hair, and something on his face that Naafi had seen only in books—were they called glasses? The man was also wearing a long white coat—very different from the tunics and dresses worn by the people of Naafi's town.

Naafi felt himself drawn in by curiosity. "Hello," he said to the man. "I'm Naafi Adasaiha. What's your name?"

The man smiled. He had a strange smile. Almost like—a smirk? "My name is Al—sorry, my mistake. I'm Sam. Sam Chase. Nice to meet you."

The man held out his hand to Naafi, and Naafi was at a loss for what to do. "Are you a westerner?" he asked the man, because he had heard that westerners had light skin, light hair, and strange customs.

The man smirked again. "You might call me that. Yes, indeed. I'm a westerner."

Naafi was in awe. "And you traveled all the way _here_? Across the _ocean_?"

The man gave a slight chuckle. "I knew you'd say that. Traveling across the ocean isn't nearly as difficult as you might think—of course, you wouldn't know that yet!" He focused his attention on Naafi's bag. "Do you have something you'd like to trade?"

"Oh," Naafi looked at the odd assortment of things the young man had in front of him. "What do _you_ have to trade?"

"Well," said the man. "I have straw for repairing houses, and I have shovels and grindstones and wheat. All very useful stuff, you see."

Naafi's face fell. The man only had things Naafi's family already owned.

Then he noticed something else the man had, partially obscured by one of the grindstones. "What about that?"

"That?" The man hesitated, then pushed it more into Naafi's view. It was a very odd contraption. It looked like it a bracelet of sorts, but it had a flat surface on one of its sides. The flat surface had numbers around the edge, and two skinny pieces that started in the middle and protruded out to touch the numbers. On closer inspection, one of the pieces—the longer, skinner one—was actually moving!

"What is this?" asked Naafi.

"It's a watch," the man explained. "It keeps time. Very popular in England these days. At least, I think it's these days. So hard for me to keep track of sometimes…well, anyway, they _will_ be popular, at some point in time. I can guarantee it. I'll trade you that for your bag of beads."

Naafi was startled. "How did you know I have beads in here?"

The man shrugged. "Just a prediction. It looked like it could be beads. Am I right? Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this prediction stuff!"

Naafi looked at Mama. "Should I make the trade?" he asked.

"If you want," Mama said.

The watch looked old, which was strange because the man had acted like watches were new inventions. But it was like nothing Naafi had seen before. "I'll make the trade," he found himself saying.

The man took all his clay beads and handed the watch to Naafi. "These knobs on the side can set the time," the man said. "It'll be easier to see when you're back home, out of the sun."

Naafi waited for what felt like hours while his mama looked at the things other merchants were selling, but then finally they got to go home. Naafi lay down on his comfortable straw bed while Mama admired the new spoon she'd traded for.

"He said I could turn these knobs," Naafi muttered to himself.

There was a shout from outside. Someone was calling for Naafi's mama. She hurried out to see what they wanted. At that exact moment, Naafi turned the knob on the side of the watch.

And at the exact moment he turned the knob—maybe _because_ he turned the knob—everything around him disappeared.

Naafi was floating. Was he floating? Where was he? It was dark, all around him. But maybe he could see some little tiny lights up ahead—were they stars? Suns? He couldn't tell. But they were coming closer and closer and closer. And then Naafi felt like he was being ripped apart. And then Naafi felt nothing.

He opened his eyes, slowly. Then he immediately shut them. _Where was he? What just happened?_ Where was his house, and Mama, and the marketplace…?

He lay there, on the floor—was it a floor?—for who knew how long. He didn't feel up to moving quite yet. _Was all that a dream?_ He wondered. _Is it Market Day now, and the whole thing of Mama and me going and me getting that watch from that strange man, and turning the knob, and floating around…was that all a dream? Probably…_

He opened his eyes once again, expecting to be on his straw bed in his familiar house. But what he saw was something altogether different.

He was in a windowless room that looked nothing like his straw house, or the tents at the marketplace, or anything else he'd ever seen. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all the same nondescript gray color. He couldn't tell what they were made out of, but whatever it was, it was all the same material, and it was something he'd never encountered before.

"What…What…" he said out loud, unable to form a complete sentence.

"Naafi Adasaiha!" A voice spoke. Startled, Naafi looked around. He'd thought he was the only one there…and it appeared that he still was. Amazingly, the voice seemed to be coming from the watch in his hand.

Naafi looked down at it, and it spoke again, in a voice that was somewhat familiar to Naafi, although not as familiar as if he'd known the voice his whole life. "You are probably confused about what just happened and why you are here. I have very careful instructions for you, and once you have followed them, you will be able to return home to your normal life with no issues whatsoever. I predict that you will want to return home as soon as possible, am I correct?"

Was Naafi expected to talk back to the watch? How was the watch talking, anyway? And why did the voice sound familiar?

The watch continued talking. "Let me give you some background information. My name is Albert Fountain. I introduced myself to you as Sam Chase."

 _Oh!_ That was why the voice had seemed familiar. Sam Chase was the man Naafi had been talking to at the marketplace, the one who had given him the watch. Was Sam talking to Naafi _through_ the watch? How could that be possible?

"I won't bore you with all the details, but essentially what you need to know is that I have an eight-year-old son named Henry, and that he and I were both recently kidnapped. Well, recently to you, I should say. It's kind of hard to explain. Anyway, my son and I were kidnapped, and my son was taken away from me. How do you think your mama would feel if you were taken away from her?"

 _Like how I just was now?_ Naafi wondered.

The watch continued. "My son was taken away from me by evil men who want to sell him for money. They turned him into a baby again. They wanted to do the same to me, but they realized, since I am already an adult, that that would not work. While they were deciding what to do with me, I stole one of their Elucidators—by 'Elucidator' I mean the machine by which they work their secret maneuverings—and escaped. I was unable to rescue my son. I thought I would be able to go back and find them again, once I figured out what was going on. I was mistaken. I could no longer find them. That is why I need your help."

Naafi was confused. People had turned a child into a baby? How could they do that? What was an 'Elucidator'? Why did Sam Chase—or whoever this was—need his, Naafi's, help?

"I miss my son terribly. I want him with me right now. Even if there is no way of turning him back into an eight-year-old—even if I will have to wait that out—I need to find him. I heard the kidnappers discussing the year they were planning to bring my son to, the exact time and place, but when I went to that time and place, my son was nowhere to be seen. Although I am good at predicting people's actions, I was unable to predict that the men were lying. And I am unable to find where they sent my son.

"Are you with me so far, Naafi?"

Was he supposed to answer? "Um…somewhat," said Naafi. _This has got to be a weird dream._

"Good," said the watch. "I predict you said, 'somewhat.' That's enough. Now, let me explain what I would like you to do. The way time travel works, there can only be one copy of an individual at any point in time. Therefore, I am unable to meet up with a future version of myself, and ask how I got my son back. Therefore, I need you to do that for me."

Naafi was lost with the words "time travel". _Time_ travel? Like, traveling through _time_? Was _that_ what had just happened?

"I have pre-set this Elucidator—the watch I traded with you at the market place—to take you first to a time hollow, where you are now, to listen to my instructions. When these instructions are completed, you must turn the knob on the side one more time. That will allow the Elucidator to bring you to February 1, 2121. I thought that would be an easy date for me to remember, to meet up with you later on—a nice series of twos and ones. When you're there, ask my future self exactly how he—that is to say, I—managed to get my son back. Ask him—that is, me—where he wants me to be, and at what time, for me to retrieve my son. Ask him to be specific about it, but don't worry about remembering it all. The Elucidator will be recording it. Just remember to bring the Elucidator back, because it's the only one I have!"

Naafi's head was spinning. He still had no idea what was going on, or how the watch was talking to him, or why he was supposed to go—to the year 2121? The future? To meet up with some guy who'd lost his son? All he wanted was to go home, to his nice, safe house. But the watch had said that wasn't an option?

"Can I go home?" he asked in a small voice.

"After you have talked to the future version of me, and brought back his answer," said the watch.

Naafi closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and turned the little knob on the watch.

It was the same sensation of falling through blackness, landing and not being able to feel anything, and finally, adjusting. Only this time when he opened his eyes, there was a face above him. The strangely pale, bespectacled face of the man from the marketplace.

"Ah, Naafi Adasaiha from 1896. We meet again."

"Uh…what is it you want me to do, again? I mean, I'm guessing it's you…wait, are you the 'future version' of the guy from the marketplace? You look the same."

The bespectacled man grinned. "Ah, yes, spending centuries in time hollows figuring things out _does_ help…and running the projections over and over again…I must say, I am a _much_ better projectionist now than I was at our first meeting. But even back then, I have to congratulate myself on how well these things worked out. After I escaped from the men who kidnapped my son and me, I spent some time in a time hollow—that is to say, a place completely removed from time, such as the one you just vacated—and familiarized myself with the device I'd stolen from my kidnappers, which I learned was called an Elucidator. Then I started devising a plan to get my son back. I realize now how _very_ naïve I was back then…since no time ever passes in a time hollow, I could have just figured out everything I could back then…but I was afraid my kidnappers would find me. So instead I went to your time, which, incidentally, is also _my_ original time…just a few months after February 1, 1896, the day my son and I disappeared." He laughed. "What a wonderful meeting time this is for you and me, the 225th anniversary of our kidnapping!"

Naafi stared. "Are you trying to say… _I'm_ your missing son? Is that why you lured me here?"

The man laughed. "No, you're not my son. But you are necessary to my plan of getting my son back. You see, if you don't go back and tell my past self what I am about to tell you, then you will create a paradox that has a 99.999999987999% chance of ruining time forever."

"I—I don't understand, sir."

"Well, let me make it clearer for you. Let me _elucidate_ it for you," he laughed at his own joke. "You need to go back to where you came from—I remember I've preset the Elucidator to do that as well, as soon as we're done with this conversation. I have always been good at planning ahead." He smirked.

"Can you see into the future?" Naafi asked, because it sure seemed that this guy could.

The man smiled in a fake-modest way. "Not in the way someone from your time period would think of seeing into the future, no. I don't use tea leaves or divination or any of that other nonsense. No, I predict. I calculate the odds of various things happening, and predict what will actually happen based on those odds, and then go with the most likely outcome. And 99.99994895% of the time, I'm right!" He beamed. "In fact, I love making predictions so much, and I'm so good at them, that making predictions is my job! I have become a projectionist for a time agency in the distant future."

Naafi didn't understand what a "projectionist" was, or even what a "time agency" was, for that matter. His confusion must have shown on his face, because the man from the marketplace continued, "Of course, I don't exactly expect you to understand what I'm talking about. I don't even expect _myself_ to know what I'm talking about, when you deliver the Elucidator back to me in the past. But it has been pre-set to bring me to where and when I need to be in order to get my son back. Let me warn myself that I will spend eight years studying as a projectionist before the time agency lets me in—completely pointless, since I could teach myself just as easily in a time hollow, and no time at all would pass. But at least that will help me get a better inside view to the time agency, to see how they operate."

"Time agency?" asked Naafi.

"Oh, yes. They're—shall we say, something like policemen? Policemen who deal with time travel, and make sure time travelers don't mess up the past and cause paradoxes and things like that. Like I'm doing right now."

"Uhh…" said Naafi. "Causing paradoxes?"

"Well, my past self sent you to talk to me, and I'm telling you and recording onto the Elucidator everything I did to _get_ here, so that my past self will be able to follow my footsteps and become, well, who I am today. If I didn't tell my past self to do all this, no telling _what_ I might have done with my life!" He smiled at the watch. "I'd almost forgotten how brilliant I've always been, even back then. Did you know Elucidators usually change form to blend in with whatever time period they're in? I programmed this one to stay a watch. As a reminder. A reminder of the time it took for me to get where I am today, and the glorious times my son and I have ahead of us."

That reminded Naafi about something. "Oh, yeah. I'm supposed to ask you how you got your son back? Or something like that?"

"Well…" the man's smile dimmed a little. "I haven't gotten him back _yet_. There was a little error…turns out the kidnappers weren't actually able to bring my son where and when they said they were bringing him. Turns out some time agents interrupted their travels—time agents from the agency I work for now, actually—and my son got crash-landed in the 21st century! And it also turns out that thirteen years after that crash were Damaged Time, meaning that no time travelers were able to make it in or out. But those years are over now. My son is about to go on a journey to help return Virginia Dare to her native time period. And that's going to be what starts it all."

Naafi got the feeling that the man at the marketplace—or the past version of this man, or _whoever_ had been speaking to him through the watch—would not be very happy to hear that, in 2121, he had _still_ not gotten his son back. Then something occurred to him. "Do you actually live in 2121?" he asked. "You said it would be easy to remember because of the twos and ones. Is this what time you live in now? And work for the time agency and everything?"

The young man laughed. "No, no, of course not! The time agency hasn't even been invented yet. Time travel itself hasn't been discovered yet. I just liked how the numbers played out, and how this is exactly 225 years after my kidnapping."

"So, if you could come here from _any_ point in your later life, why didn't you wait to meet me until you'd already gotten your son?" Naafi asked.

The man smiled. "Well, I can't give _too_ much away, but…let's just say, once I get my son, it will be impossible for me to communicate with my former self. My son and I will be…elsewhere. Oh, we'll still be alive, don't worry about that." His smile turned more into a smirk. "And the best thing is, if the time agency doesn't mess things up—which I am 99.99988838474% certain they won't—my son will get to continue the life he started in the 21st century _and_ come live with me."

Nothing the man was saying made any sense. But Naafi didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to do anything but go home.

"Can I take the watch back to…your other self now?" Naafi asked.

"Hmm," said the man. "Let me think. Is there anything left that I haven't said yet? It would be a shame if I sent you back without remembering a key detail I was supposed to tell myself. Then _I'd_ create a paradox!" He laughed as if what he'd said was very funny. Then his expression became more serious. "Let me borrow that Elucidator…" he took the watch from Naafi's hand. Naafi felt like crying out _Don't ruin it! That's my only way home!_ But he stayed quiet.

"Let me just jot down…let's see, the year I need to go to…the place I need to go…the name of the specific time agent I'll be working under…and the name of my son. His name is Jonah Skidmore in the 21st century."

He finished doing whatever he was doing on the watch—was he _really_ putting all that information in there? How?—and then handed the watch back to Naafi. "Here you go. Sorry for interrupting your calm and peaceful life. And for taking your clay beads. My past self will give them all back to you once you give him back the Elucidator."

Naafi had barely grabbed hold of the watch when he felt himself falling again, through the blackness. He landed, this time, in his own home.

"Mama!" he cried, getting up. "Mama, where are you? How long was I away? Were you looking for me?" He thought about how odd that must have looked for Mama, if she'd seen him just vanish from his bed.

But he remembered that she had gone outside right before he vanished. So she hadn't seen him disappear. Maybe she thought he'd gone back to the market. Maybe…

He ran outside, screaming at the top of his lungs. "Mama! I'm okay! I'm right here!"

Then he stopped. Because there his mother was, talking to the man from the marketplace. Sam Chase, or whatever his other name was. He was still holding Naafi's bag of beads.

Naafi's mama looked at Naafi, bewildered.

"I know where you are," she said. "Is everything all right?"

Naafi stopped. "You've really been talking to this man…all this time? You didn't notice I was gone?"

"Gone?" his mama looked puzzled. "I've only been out here for a minute or less."

That's when Naafi realized. If it was time travel he had done, maybe all that time for him had taken no time at all for his mom. Maybe he'd arrived back from his travels only a split second after he'd left.

The marketplace man seemed to know what he was thinking. "I was just telling your mama about how bad I feel for scamming you," he said. "These clay beads are extremely valuable. And that watch is…"

 _Even more valuable,_ thought Naafi. _Since it can apparently transport people through time…_

But did he really want that? All he'd done, traveling through time, was listen to the guy blabber about stuff he didn't understand, and get confused, and wish he was at home. And who knew when the watch would next whisk him off to some other time period?

Besides, apparently he needed to give the watch to the man, in order for the man to someday find his son. And to avoid causing…a paradox? Hadn't the man said something like, if Naafi didn't give the watch to his other self, the man wouldn't be able to meet Naafi in the future in the first place? And then how would Naafi have been able to make it home?

"Here you go," he said to the man, handing him the watch. In return, the man handed him his bag of clay beads.

Together, Naafi and his mama walked back into the house. _Did I make the right choice?_ Naafi wondered. _I helped Sam, I know that. But what about me?_

On his bed, Naafi sorted through the beads he himself had made. He remembered each and every one. But…was that an extra?

He picked up the bead he didn't recognize, the one he hadn't made. Its design was interesting. As he looked closer, he noticed words. Words that were too tiny to read, and yet he found he _could_ read them somehow.

"Thank you for your help, Naafi. Thank you for visiting me on February 1, 2121, and for bringing the watch back to myself in 1896. And thank you most of all for giving me that watch to trade your younger self in the first place.

-Albert Fountain/Sam Chase/Second Chance"


End file.
